Story/Places/Open Grounds
Purpose Mechanics Outdoors * Descriptions *corner: loose cobbled path (bend), connecting inner hall and Training Grounds *dense trees along either "wall" of the bend *open field, stretches to rift's edge *TBD The Memorial Tree * Weeping White Birch tree * paintings: ** Bottom: *** A dense, localized sandstorm - in is path, a resident raising a shield; in its wake, a directed cloud of fire and lightning surrounding a mass of obsidian spikes and solid glass. *** A lakeside next to an impossible maelstrom willed with tentacles and teeth, erupting pure shadow - in the ground, a discarded greataxe; in the water, an entranced resident walking calmly into the maw, even reaching for it. *** A scorched cavern floor. A slender figure, wearing a tattered dark robe - a familiar outfit of charcoal and lemon-lime, but severely torn and tattered; next to her, a blood-ridden but alert resident impacts on the ground, away from a horrendous mass of scales, legs, and molten rock - a warped centipede of a wingless dragon (DC 20 history check: Behir, but bigger and suffused with lava). In the creature's neck, a scythe blade made of pure lemon-lime light; in the denizen's chest and torso, blood and the beast's* piercing fangs. (*I know it's classified as a monstrosity, beast just narrates better.) **** Putra's predecessor, real name "Lauren Stielvine" [stiel: a German word for a plant's stalk] (new denizens take the name of their domain, Kingsman style) ** Top: *** A massive cake in the cafeteria, each layer topped with rings of more cakes. *** A brilliant party happening in the Commons; roped wood bridges, floating tables, an airborne obstacle course, a huge net above the bottom layer, and a stone maze beneath. *** In the Forum, stalls are empty of their usual wares, replaced with treats, baubles, and candles, streaming decorations of white, orange, black, and violet stretch between the two sides of upper paths, a line of residents leads to the outfit stall - those leaving it wear all manner of costumes, some of personas and some of beasts, and at the back, a dancing crowd before a makeshift stage of costumed musicians. *** A sparring match in the Training Grounds; the stands are filled, standing figures both cloaked and not fill the ground, fists raised in cheer cheers or hands cupped to call out - in a large ring, three denizens hold their own against a dozen residents. (It's Taeneri, Saxus, and Flumé); amber crystals grow in scattered patches, a jagged pit fills half the circle, and a surge of water carries five figures into it. *** Camping out in the Common Room; hammocks everywhere, pillow forts, a table lined with mugs of cocoa, a rowed half-circle of residents watching a denizen act out a spooky tale, the misty shape of an illusory dragon breathing ice - behind the cloaked figure, the fireplace, home to a flame of black and violet. (It's Simul.) * writing: ** "We who fight the chaos, so this oasis can live, so that none need hunger, so that none are without family, so that all can learn, so that self-expression may roam free; we who pay the toll of paradise, we the brave who protect the Rift, even from itself."